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Thursday, June 25, 2015

"Research has shown that high-carb diets... the fallout of the low-fat movement, increase the risk of metabolic dysfunction, obesity, and even heart disease..."

Fat is good for you.

Fat Is Back: Time To Stop Limiting Dietary Fats, Experts Say: "The latest version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans – the government-sanctioned recommendations about what we should and shouldn’t eat – will include a game-changing edit: There’s no longer going to be a recommended upper limit on total fat intake. This hasn’t gotten as much press as the other big change – that cholesterol will no longer be considered a “nutrient of concern,” meaning that we can now eat eggs without feeling guilty. But as the authors of a new paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association point out, the true game-changer in the new recommendations is that we won’t have to worry so much about the total fat content of our food. And this makes a lot of sense, since in many ways, fats are much better for us than what they’ve typically been replaced with in low-fat diets – refined carbs and added sugars...

“Placing limits on total fat intake has no basis in science and leads to all sorts of wrong industry and consumer decisions,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, one of the authors of the new paper. “Modern evidence clearly shows that eating more foods rich in healthful fats like nuts, vegetable oils, and fish have protective effects, particularly for cardiovascular disease. Other fat-rich foods, like whole milk and cheese, appear pretty neutral; while many low-fat foods, like low-fat deli meats, fat-free salad dressing, and baked potato chips, are no better and often even worse than full-fat alternatives. It’s the food that matters, not its fat content.”"

Research has shown that high-carb diets, which have typically been the fallout of the low-fat movement, increase the risk of metabolic dysfunction, obesity, and even heart disease – all the things that low-fat diets were supposed to address. To this end, the authors suggest that Nutrition Facts on food labels be changed, to call out not only added sugar, but also refined grains. Not adding these elements in, they say, would imply that added sugars and processed carbs are no big deal – and that couldn’t be further from the truth."

Fat is back: Vilified nutrient gets reprieve - CNN.com: "The move away from recommended limits on total fat represents a sea change from four decades of nutrition policy, not just a departure from recent Dietary Guidelines, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the current report. The recommendation about fat was not featured as prominently in the report as other conclusions, including that "(c)holesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption," Mozaffarian said. So he and Dr. David S. Ludwig, of Boston Children's Hospital, wrote a commentary about it that was published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "I think it is crucial for all government agencies to formally state that there is no upper limit on fat," Mozaffarian said. He said that includes HHS and USDA, which will decide whether to include the committee's conclusion in the Dietary Guidelines by the end of the year, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, which determines the nutrition information on food labels...

"The limit on total fat presents an obstacle to sensible change, promoting harmful low-fat foods, undermining attempts to limit intakes of refined starch and added sugar, and discouraging the restaurant and food industry from providing products higher in healthful fats. It is time for the US Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services to develop the proper signage, public health messages, and other educational efforts to help people understand that limiting total fat does not produce any meaningful health benefits and that increasing healthful fats, including more than 35% of calories, has documented health benefits. Based on the strengths of accumulated new scientific evidence and consistent with the new DGAC report, a restructuring of national nutritional policy is warranted to move away from total fat reduction and toward healthy food choices, including those higher in healthful fats."